Picture freezing on trailers and adverts

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Picture freezing on trailers and adverts

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Paul Bton

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Martin Liddle - 1 min ago »

Paul Bton - 1 hour ago »
I have 95% signal strength with 100% signal quality. But does that fit with the picture only freezing on some ads and trailers? Maybe the sound format issue only affects the Aura when the signal strength is too high? What do people think?

On other Humax models I would certainly suggest trying an attenuator; I am less convinced that it is helpful for the Aura, particularly for the symptoms you are experiencing. On the other hand an attenuator is cheap and at least having tried it, you could go back to them and say "your suggestion didn't work, what other ideas do you have?".

Yes I’m not entirely convinced. I tried an attenuator before when I had signal fluctuation on the SD channels but that didn’t help, so I returned the Aura and replaced with a new one. That worked. I still have the attenuator so I have just attached it and turned signal down to 85%. I will see if it freezes again on the PCM 5.1 to PCM stereo transition.

| Mon 9 Aug 2021 14:51:17 #11 |
Paul Bton

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Martin Liddle - 2 days ago »

Paul Bton - 1 hour ago »
I have 95% signal strength with 100% signal quality. But does that fit with the picture only freezing on some ads and trailers? Maybe the sound format issue only affects the Aura when the signal strength is too high? What do people think?

On other Humax models I would certainly suggest trying an attenuator; I am less convinced that it is helpful for the Aura, particularly for the symptoms you are experiencing. On the other hand an attenuator is cheap and at least having tried it, you could go back to them and say "your suggestion didn't work, what other ideas do you have?".

Yes I was a bit skeptical at first about attenuation especially as it had no effect on a fluctuating signal caused by faulty unit. But Have been trying attenuation with signal down to 85%. Went past a change from 5.1 to stereo and no freeze. So looks promising until software fix comes

| Wed 11 Aug 2021 15:14:27 #12 |
telltuff

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Paul Bton - 2 days ago »

Martin Liddle - 2 days ago »

Paul Bton - 1 hour ago »
I have 95% signal strength with 100% signal quality. But does that fit with the picture only freezing on some ads and trailers? Maybe the sound format issue only affects the Aura when the signal strength is too high? What do people think?

On other Humax models I would certainly suggest trying an attenuator; I am less convinced that it is helpful for the Aura, particularly for the symptoms you are experiencing. On the other hand an attenuator is cheap and at least having tried it, you could go back to them and say "your suggestion didn't work, what other ideas do you have?".

Yes I was a bit skeptical at first about attenuation especially as it had no effect on a fluctuating signal caused by faulty unit. But Have been trying attenuation with signal down to 85%. Went past a change from 5.1 to stereo and no freeze. So looks promising until software fix comes

I am still seeing the problem with an attenuator fitted.

As I mentioned in another topic "Stereo/Multistream switching causing problems" (should really have been titled "Stereo/Multichannel switching causing problems"). I have two Auras one connected directly via HDMI to a TV with the Aura audio output set to TV (internal speakers)and the other is connected via HDMI to a multichannel receiver and then via HDMI to a TV with the Aura audio output set to Home Cinema via HDMI [Aura-Audio Equipment-TV] (up to 7.1ch).

The Aura connected directly to the TV now has an attenuator fitted giving a signal strength on C21 (Rowridge HD channels) of 86% and 100% quality. The Aura connected via the multichannel receiver shows 100% for strength and quality on C21.

Last night I recorded The Watch on BBC2 HD (guessed it would be broadcast in multichannel) on both Auras. At the start of the recorded programme there is a brief intro in stereo before it switches to multichannel. Playback on both machines will freeze (but not always) when the audio switches from stereo to multichannel.

I was a bit sceptical about the signal strengh argument having seen the problem on recordings with no detectable corruption of video or audio but didn't want to dismiss it out of hand.

| Fri 13 Aug 2021 16:17:18 #13 |
SSThing

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100% strength and 100% quality clearly indicates that you haven't dialled in any or enough attenuation yet.

| Fri 13 Aug 2021 16:49:37 #14 |
telltuff

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SSThing - 4 mins ago »
100% strength and 100% quality clearly indicates that you haven't dialled in any or enough attenuation yet.

As I said I have 2 Auras. The same problem manifests on both Auras one of which is fitted with an attenuator that has Strength 86% and Quality 100% and the other with no attenuator with 100% Strength and Quality. If the high signal argument was true then I would expect the Aura without the attenuator to show the problem and the Aura with the attenuator not to show the problem.

AS both the attenuated and un-attenuated Auras exihibit the problem tends to show its not due to a high input signal,

| Fri 13 Aug 2021 17:03:32 #15 |
SSThing

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But with such high signal (even 86% may be too high) unless you dial in more attenuation to reduce the signal on both, you aren't testing or proving/disproving anything.
However, I am of a mind to think that it's probably not signal related anyway because 2 channel is 2 channel and 5.1 is 5.1, irrespective of signal strength.
Apart from this.
My 4000t indicates 93% strength 100% quality without attenuation and if I rapidly change up/down the channels I can get a few seconds of stuttering. But if I attenuate down to about 80% strength this stuttering completely disappears.
I suspect that there is some sort of software based attenuation in operation and rapidly swapping channels means that it needs to settle if I change to the higher signal channels.
With the Aura, perhaps the same happens and combined with the processing required to swap decoding from 2-5.1ch,there is a momentary bottleneck in the processing capability?

| Fri 13 Aug 2021 18:49:21 #16 |
telltuff

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SSThing - 2 hours ago »
But with such high signal (even 86% may be too high) unless you dial in more attenuation to reduce the signal on both, you aren't testing or proving/disproving anything.
However, I am of a mind to think that it's probably not signal related anyway because 2 channel is 2 channel and 5.1 is 5.1, irrespective of signal strength.
Apart from this.
My 4000t indicates 93% strength 100% quality without attenuation and if I rapidly change up/down the channels I can get a few seconds of stuttering. But if I attenuate down to about 80% strength this stuttering completely disappears.
I suspect that there is some sort of software based attenuation in operation and rapidly swapping channels means that it needs to settle if I change to the higher signal channels.
With the Aura, perhaps the same happens and combined with the processing required to swap decoding from 2-5.1ch,there is a momentary bottleneck in the processing capability?

In the 9th post in this topic the OP quotes a response he got from Humax

'That model has 3 tuners in it, so they are only getting a third of the signal strength each, to accommodate for this we had to turn up the sensitivity of the tuners, but because of that any signal strength 90% or over can overload the tuners and cause issues. A very simple remedy is to fit an attenuator to reduce the signal'

The OP goes on to say in further posts he was using an attenuator set at 85% strength. I used 86% (as close as I could get to 85% with my attenuator, any further reduction would give 82%) to correlate with the OP and as Humax quote above 90% strength could be an issue then I assume that 86% strength (less 90%) should be, as far as Humax is concerned, OK for input signal strength.

| Fri 13 Aug 2021 21:57:31 #17 |
SSThing

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But Humax tech support are only giving you half the story.
As I explained here:-

https://myhumax.org/forum/topic/just-got-aura-few-little-niggles

in post #7.

| Sat 14 Aug 2021 7:44:32 #18 |
Paul Bton

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SSThing - 15 mins ago »
But Humax tech support are only giving you half the story.
As I explained here:-
https://myhumax.org/forum/topic/just-got-aura-few-little-niggles
in post #7.

It would be good to hear from a ‘signal expert’ about what is the best signal strength range, upper and lower for the Aura, if such a person exists.

Interesting what you say about much lower signal levels being ok as long as quality is 100%. I just don’t know. But surely you want it as high as you can get it but below 90% in the Aura?

Yes Humax support can seem a bit variable in quality of advice. It seems like they are not always as tech savvy as perhaps we would want. They actually sent me an attenuator in the post though.

Is it really the case that each tuner ‘only gets a third of the signal’. I seem to remember someone questioning that. Does it depend on tuners being mounted in series or in parallel? I have one aerial on my house and a splitter put in by aerial fitter. Do both my humax boxes still get 100% signal? They seem to. Signal isn’t like water is it; you can’t divide it like that?

Also as you say this signal strength explanation doesn’t address the sound being broadcast in PCM 5.1 or Stereo and that picture would freeze when broadcast moved from one to the other.

| Sat 14 Aug 2021 9:08:30 #19 |
SSThing

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Yes, of course it makes sense to have a stronger signal, but to assign an arbitrary figure is wrong.
A bit like a car in the good old days.
Too much fuel through the carburettor would be as detrimental as not enough. Tweak the mixture and you can get it just right. But this will be slightly different for each and every car based on fuel, air temperatures, driving style etc etc etc.

| Sat 14 Aug 2021 9:28:10 #20 |